Create a Custom 404 Page

How to Create a Custom 404 Page

Your SharePoint site comes the ability to completely customize your agencies ‘404 Page Not Found’ Page. This article will walk you through the steps to replace the default Sasquatch ‘Well, you found me…’ message:

Log Into the Site

1. To start, log into your site, navigate to your sites homepage. The URL will look approximately like this, but will include your agency name or acronym:
   • https://www.oregon.gov/Pages/index.aspx 
2. Add the phrase ‘-auth’ to the end of the www in the url:
   • https://www-auth.oregon.gov/Pages/index.aspx.
3. This will load the authoring version of your site and prompt you to login using your credentials.

Find and Edit the 404 Page

1. Using the gear icon in the upper right, choose ‘Site contents’:
2. This will bring you to the sites Lists and Libraries. These vary from agency to agency, but you will always be able to find the Pages Library here:
3. Go ahead and open the Pages Library. Here you will find a list of all Pages on the site (subsites have their own Pages Library). Click on the 404 name to open that page:
4. Using the gear in the upper right corner choose ‘Edit page.’ This will open the page and allow you to click into the fields where the HTML for the 404 page is added (the text is in the field on the right, and the Sasquatch image is in the field on the left):
5. Once your cursor is in one of the fields, then using the SharePoint ribbon go to Format Text and choose Edit Source:
6. This will open a modal where you can add any HTML you would like to display on your 404 page (here is a good reference to help with any basic HTML):
7. Once finished click OK in the bottom right corner. In the SharePoint ribbon choose Page and click Save. Saving this way treats your changes like a draft. They will only appear for you to double check and look over.
8. Once you are happy and ready to publish choose Publish > Publish from the SharePoint Ribbon. Confirm on the modal and the updated 404 Page will be live on the site.
9. Note that you might have an old version of the 404 Page cached, so don’t be alarmed if you still see that version. Wait a few minutes, clear your cache, and try again.